Natalie Schlabs – Don’t Look Too Close

“Don’t Look Too Close” is the next single from Nashville-based singer and songwriter Natalie Schlabs. This song is on another level, the tune is so catchy and the lyrics are original and meaningful. Schlabs has an amazing talent when it comes to songwriting and she has one of the most beautiful charming voices we have heard in a while! She has so much talent and her vocal performance is very professional. This song is one of those rare songs that just leave you stuck on repeat for a long long time. Natalie Schlabs is definitely a name we should remember, her music is unique and sets her apart from the crowd and we are very excited to see where her career will go within the next months. Such a great experience!

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Nashville-based singer/songwriter Natalie Schlabs writes songs that explore the complicated emotions and perspective-shifting moments that make up family relationships. Her music often blends sublime vocal harmonies with lyrics about the secret desires and difficulties of living life among loved ones. Her first full-length album Midnight With No Stars was celebrated for its willingness to explore the personal. New Slang praised the album for revealing “a rugged truthfulness we often save for conversations with ourselves.” There’s a richness and clarity to Schlabs’ voice reminiscent of artists like Norah Jones and Jill Andrews, making her a popular choice for harmonizing background vocals. She frequently collaborates with other musicians on tour and in the studio. Her stunning duet with Irish-born artist Ben Glover “Fall Apart” features vocals that “ring and resound like a fork tapping crystal” and was Song of the Week on The Bluegrass Situation in 2016.

Schlabs’ introduction to Nashville music came through collaboration, singing background vocals for fellow Texan Ryan Culwelland performing with Katie Herzig at Paste Studio NYC in 2018. “I think there’s something cool about the act of stepping into someone else’s sound and blending with it. It’s a challenge, and a kind of freedom, too.” Like many other Nashville musicians, the West Texas native grew up singing in church, but unlike others the majority of her early musical experiences took place at home with family. Her three brothers were musicians— one a pianist, one a guitarist and drummer, and one guitarist and songwriter— her mom sang, and her grandfather, a guitarist and vocalist who performed classics, often invited the family to sing with him. “It was very normal for all of us to be together in a room, playing instruments and singing together. My love for music comes from my family, and my love for family is often the substance of my songwriting.”

Breaking from her country roots, Schlabs’ new album Don’t Look Too Close (set for release Oct 9th, 2020)steps into indie territory with a compelling mix of instrumentation laced with solo vocals that bloom into easy, delicate harmonies. Co-produced by Juan Solorzano and Zachary Dyke, with Caleb Hickman on saxophone and her husband Joshua Rogerson bass,the albumswells and ebbs with elegant, absorbing shapes. The songs are moody, candid, and tender, each featuring Schlabs’ characteristically sleek vocals front-and-center, backed by charming instrumental moments that add form and depth to the melodies. “Juan’s got a great ear. He created really original textures with layered guitar. That’s a big part of the sound of the record.” Recorded the year of her 30th birthday and largely written while pregnant with her first child, the album naturally focuses on tensions between past and present. “I was thinking about how to raise a child, how to pass down values. There’s a dismantling of what I thought I knew. What do I value in my life and where did those things come from? What do I want to share with my children and what do I want to spare them from?”

The tracks on Don’t Look Too Close traverse the spectrum of feelings that tend to coincide with love, from bittersweet consideration of “the wilderness caused by depression or illness” in “See What I See” (don’t believe in / all you’re feeling) to the haunting gentleness of “Ophelia,” written for a friend who lost her daughter. The title song “Don’t Look Too Close” addresses the everyday aches and pains people tend to hide from loved ones. “There were entire rooms of things my parents went through that I had no idea about. And my kid will have no idea about a lot of things I experience.” The song reflects on love’s blindness, how “sometimes the ones you love will never know how much you love them.” The album as a whole represents a place, a time, and a pocket of feelings that are as distinctly human as they are beautiful. “Growing up surrounded by family in the flatlands, there’s not a whole lot going on outside of the people. The climate is extreme, and isolation binds you to the people around you. Everyone’s in each other’s business, and you learn that love can go in many directions. Sometimes it’s about solidarity and sacrifice, sometimes it’s obsessive or painful. This record is about navigating those feelings within our closest relationships.”